256 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Mr. H. P. Smith said "coal dust now was not wasted as for- 

 merly, by coal merchants. It is worth $1.50 to $2 a ton in New 

 England, where manufacturers have learned to burn it, without 

 any preparation. I burn a good deal of coal for manufacturing 

 purposes, and have learned how to do it economically. There is 

 a great waste wherever it is used. I know families that use ten 

 or fifteen tons a year, under precisely the same circumstances as 

 with others who only use five tons. In the latter case, all the coal 

 is burned. The cinders are sifted from the ashes, over and over, 

 and returaed to the fire, until almost everything is consumed. 

 Even the ashes, if wetted and placed upon a hot coal fire, seem to 

 ignite and burn so as to leave but a small residuum. In regard 

 to this new compound, to utilize coal dust, it appears to me the 

 cost of manufacturing, as stated, is quite too high to make it a 

 useful invention, since the finest coal can be burned under steam 

 boilers without any preparation, and with a little attention, in 

 ordinary stoves, by wetting and using it upon a hot coal fire. 



Prof. Tillman said : " One of our members has invented a 

 machine for pressing coal dust, which I hope will help to utilize it. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — Whatever the plan, it must be one that 

 will not cost $2 a ton. My opinion is, that a small addition of 

 clay and water will make the dust adhere with great pressure, and 

 at such small cost as to be avaihible. All but 25 cents a ton of 

 the value of anthracite coal, where it is consumed, arises from 

 labor, transportation, capital and profit. Sometimes it is loss to 

 the dealer instead of profit. For family use, or in a furnace, I 

 recommend mixing five to ten per cent of clay with coal dust, by 

 dissolving the clay in water and wetting up the dust and packing 

 it in an old box, barrel or keg. When dry, break up and use. If 

 an iron cylinder which opened in halves, easily fiistened together, 

 was used, it could be packed full of the mixture, made solid by 

 tamping ; then open, turn out the charge, and refill. 



Dr. J. V. C. Smith, gave an account of the immense waste of coal 

 dust at the mines in Enghuid, where it is set on fire to get it out 

 of the way. That cannot be done with anthracite dust. But 

 through the district of bituminous mines, the night traveler is 

 seldom out of sight of great fires. With my New England ideas 

 of economy, this enormous waste of fuel caused sad reflections in 

 a country where the poor suffer as they do in England for want 

 of fire. 



Mr. E. G. Pardee spoke of the enormous piles of coal which he 



